


I Watch The Colors Blur

by LaoisePotter



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 01:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaoisePotter/pseuds/LaoisePotter
Summary: Emma sees colors in words and letters and uses that to make sense of things.





	I Watch The Colors Blur

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in canon, a stream-of-consciousness elaboration on what goes on in Emma's mind during the events before and after The Prom.

_Alyssa: red yellow wine-purple dark green dark green red_

Emma felt like it was easier to see people as the colors of their name these days. It kept things impersonal, on the surface, like most others wanted to see her. If a word was all that mattered to them, then a word was all that mattered to her. Maybe two words, like Alyssa Greene. Red, yellow, wine-purple, dark green, red; brown, moss-green, orange, yellow. There was more green in Alyssa than Greene and Emma wasn’t totally sure why that was something she wanted to think about more.

_Nick: light blue white yellow pink_

_Kevin: pink orange wine-red white yellow_

Some of the brightest names caused her the most pain. They bounced her off of lockers throughout junior year, until one good shove caught her arm on a corner and actually drew blood. Kevin paled, Nick laughed, and Emma socked Nick so hard in the face she broke his nose in two different places. She was suspended for only three days because Kevin decided to step up and tell the whole truth. His bright colors didn’t feel as harsh after that. Her arm still stung a dark, mocking red.

_Shelby: dark green light orange orange yellow blue wine-purple_

_Kaylee: pink red wine-purple yellow orange orange_

Their colors would be nothing but more noise in the background if it weren’t for Alyssa. _Alyssa_. Her colors made them stand out because they were always together. No matter how hard she tried to filter her out with everyone else, Emma was always drawn to Alyssa. Why was she always drawn to Alyssa?

_Person: pink orange moss-green dark green white yellow_

Alyssa exploded her way into personhood in Emma’s life. Quite suddenly, quite literally, but quite fashionably—well, if one could count peanut brittle coating as fashionable—and Emma laughed for the first time in months. Alyssa looked at her and smiled, and Emma felt like she could see for the first time in years. Alyssa spoke to her and the colors swirled freely around her head, no longer trapped by the letters Emma’s world was defined by. She was the first to break through, and everything began to make sense.

_Lesbo: yellow orange dark green blue white_

The colors weren’t threatening, but the hanging bear was. The hatred behind the act was. Shelby and Kaylee, whose colors were so closely tied with Alyssa’s, were threatening to bring it all crashing down just because Emma wanted to _exist_ for one night. She wanted to live _outside_ words for once. The world wasn’t black and white, but the colors weren’t quiet anymore. Nothing was quiet anymore. The months of gentle buildup, Alyssa’s smiles, her hands, her lips, her vows, all of it was suddenly straining against the protective walls they built up and all Emma wanted to do was hide now. Everything was safer when people were just their colors, when she existed in nothing but the rainbow of her own design. Alyssa was scared and Emma couldn’t comfort her because she was scared too. She took a deep breath, reached out, grabbed the colors that swirled around them, and began to paint. She painted out of desperation, out of love, out of determination to not give in to what the darkest parts of her wanted. Alyssa grabbed her hand and began to move with her. Maybe, _maybe_, the image they were painting into a dream was one they could write into existence. Maybe they could hold onto the colors together.

_Secret: dark green orange yellow moss-green orange black_

The colors of Emma’s broken heart were like a swamp. The _I can’t_s that fell from Alyssa’s mouth so many times shone down white yellow red yellow black on the murky water and burned away at her skin until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She was sick of fighting the colors, their colors, _her_ colors. She was tired. But Emma pulled herself out instead of letting herself slip under. She had the whole rainbow and then some in her arsenal. There was still something she could do. What did people listen to? _Stop_: dark green black white purple and _red_. _Caution_: yellow red pink black white white yellow and _black_. _Go_: brown white and _green_. She grabbed her pen, her notebook, her guitar, and sat down to finally, _finally_, bend the colors to her will, and nobody else’s.

_Prom: purple moss-green white navy _

Shelby hugged her and Kaylee’s smile was as sunny as her name that day. The joy in Alyssa’s eyes shone red white wine-purple when she looked at her friends, looked at Emma, looked at where they all were together, and Emma thought she never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment. The hearts of every kid that danced with them beat red yellow yellow orange purple black red yellow yellow orange, lighting up the room with purpose and happiness and _acceptance_ that meant more to Emma than any other color combination she’d ever seen. Alyssa was in her arms, laughing at something ridiculous she had said, making her heart pound with yellow white wine-red orange that she could see written all over Alyssa’s face. Their freedom to love, the freedom to _be_, the freedom they fought for and _won_ wrapped around them like the warmest dark orange moss-green orange orange green white navy sunset of summer. Emma could see her orange navy navy red tangling with Alyssa’s red yellow wine-purple dark green dark green red as they moved closer and breathed each other in, in awe of their existence as _them_. Emma could barely believe how lucky she was that the world was full of people again. Some days, it was still hard to see herself as more than the yellow white yellow white moss-green dark green inside her head, but in those times now, Alyssa was never far away—beautiful, warm, loving, wonderfully human Alyssa—to remind her of just how real she was. Just how real _they_ were. And that…that meant more to Emma than all the colors in the universe.

_Kiss: pink white dark green dark green_


End file.
